


cover up that you're ruthless (i never promised you anything i couldn't do)

by notcaycepollard



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Daisy Johnson is the only Marvel Superhero, F/M, Pining, Unrequited Love, mentioned Daisy/Lincoln, post 3x11, very vague hints of Lincoln/Jemma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-13
Updated: 2016-03-13
Packaged: 2018-05-26 13:19:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,375
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6240835
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notcaycepollard/pseuds/notcaycepollard
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Daisy doesn't know, exactly, when it was she realized there was nothing she wouldn't do to save her people.</p>
<p>(That's a lie, she <em>knows</em> it's a lie. She knows the precise moment. A leather jacket, and a stolen car, and punching Raina with a fury that'd burned since the moment Coulson had been taken. What wouldn't she do, now. She'd burn down buildings.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	cover up that you're ruthless (i never promised you anything i couldn't do)

Daisy doesn't know, exactly, when it was she realized there was nothing she wouldn't do to save her people.

(That's a lie, she  _knows_ it's a lie. She knows the precise moment. A leather jacket, and a stolen car, and punching Raina with a fury that'd burned since the moment Coulson had been taken. What wouldn't she do, now. She'd burn down buildings.)

The problem, she thinks, is when people don't understand.

"So," she murmurs that night, props herself up on one arm. "Enough about my day. What'd you get up to back here while I was out being a superhero?" She's being deliberately playful, maybe even a little coy. Trying really hard at this, to make this  _good_  between the two of them. She does want it, she does, and when Lincoln smiles at her, touches her hair, she can almost believe she deserves it.

"We-" he says, frowns a little. "We used, uh, some kind of memory device. To recover intel from Von Strucker."

"The theta brain-wave machine? Huh, that makes sense. Don't know why we didn't think of it before. Did it work?"

"It... yeah, kind of. Yeah. It was pretty awful. Where did it  _come_ from?"

"Centipede," Daisy tells him. "We recovered it, when... on a mission."

"You rescued Mr Coulson," Lincoln says, and Daisy looks up sharper than she intends. "SHIELD, I mean. Your team. You rescued him while he was in it?"

"Yeah," she agrees, unaccountably relieved that Lincoln doesn't know the truth, that he doesn't know it was  _her_ who led the rescue mission. How she'd found him. Sobbing onto Coulson's chest, kissing his knuckles,  _calling him back_. "Yeah, we did. They were using it to try and recover something they thought he had. Things he'd forgotten."

"He said," Lincoln says, "he said he'd been in it twice." Daisy blinks at that, surprised that Coulson would have shared, and Lincoln twists his mouth a little, looks uncomfortable. "Was that the second time?"

"No," Daisy says, thinks about it for a moment. If Coulson  _told him_ , then- "The second time, it was here. With SHIELD. We needed more information-"

" _We_?" Lincoln asks, "you _helped_ , with that? You put him through it?" and Daisy blinks again.

"Yes," she says in the end. "I talked him through it. Directed the questions."  _Told him to follow my voice._ Lincoln frowns again, pulls away from her a little.

"How- I can't believe you would," he says, sounds shocked. "It was  _horrible_ , Daisy, and that was on someone from HYDRA. I mean, you know I'm not Coulson's biggest fan, but to  _do that-_ " Daisy sits up, pushes her hair back, takes a ragged breath.

"I did what I had to," she snaps. "And it was  _his choice_. And if you think it's okay to do something to a HYDRA agent, to torture information out of them, and get squeamish when the tables are turned- that's not what we  _do_ , Lincoln. That's never what we've done."  _He sat in our basement for weeks_ , she thinks, _and we never tortured a thing out of him. It was just all me, playing him for what I needed_ _to know_ , and she brushes furious tears away.

"I- okay. I'm sorry. That's not what I meant," Lincoln mutters after a moment, and she's still angry, still stung that he'd judge her so quickly over that (and it _is_ what he meant, Daisy knows). But he touches her arm, gentle as if he's trying to mollify her, and she doesn't want to sleep alone tonight.

"It's okay," Daisy says in the end, although it's not. "Let's just... let me tell you about Elena, okay?" It's a good subject change. They're both backing down and avoiding the confrontation, and eventually she's sleepy enough that she stifles a yawn, leans over to switch off the light.

"Daisy," Lincoln whispers just as she's on the edge of sleep. "What was it you needed to know so badly from Coulson, that he went back into the machine a second time?"

She pretends to be asleep. It's easier that way. Explaining would mean too much, right now, and she doesn't quite want to tell Lincoln how it is she and Coulson are connected. What ties their blood together. (That's never been what connected them. It's not what brought him back, the first time. That was all her,  _calling him home_ , and she doesn't want to mention that either.)

 

 

She's always known that this thing with Lincoln wouldn't last. Figured it out as soon as he recoiled at what Daisy had been willing to do, what lengths she'd go to. She can't blame him, not entirely. He'd been so willing to follow her mother anywhere, to hurt people for the greater good, and she guesses it's a once-bitten-twice-shy kind of thing. She's not her mother, but she can't expect Lincoln to know that.

(And she knows, she _knows_ , she's ruthless the way Jiaying had been, at least a little. Not the way she was at the end, not starting a war against people caught in the crossfire, but-  _your mother was a good person, she was_ , Daisy remembers, and tries to cling to that. To be the guardian her people need, a furious mother protecting her team.)

If she's being honest, she'd known whatever they were building had an expiry date as soon as Lincoln let slip his sole priority was to rescue the Inhumans and _leave_ , regardless of Coulson and Fitz on the other side of a portal only she could reopen. She'll protect her people any way she knows how, but  _her people_ includes, will always include, these fragile, idiot-brave humans. Her loyalty is divided, and that doesn't make Lincoln wrong, not exactly, but he knows as well as she does that he'll never be her only priority.

It still stings, when he says it's not going to work between them. She's protecting everyone else, but along the way she'd forgotten to shield her own heart, and Lincoln looking at her so regretfully, it  _hurts_.

"I should- I'll go back to Cincinnati," he says, awkward, shoves his hands in his pockets. "You shouldn't have to- I mean, I-"

"No," Daisy says, "stay. We need you."

"I... won't that be weird?"

"We're adults," Daisy tells him. "No weirdness, I promise. If you want to go, I can't- I can't order you to stay, Lincoln, you've gotta make your own choice here, but please.  _Stay_. You and Jemma are doing really good work in the lab, and there's always a place in the team for you." He gives her an odd look, both confused and relieved, and he does stay, in the end. Like it's somewhere he's found his place, like he does want to help in ways that he can.

It stings, again, when she thinks about it. The  _work_ it takes for her to hold a team together, to quash her own feelings.  _Go_ , she'd wanted to tell him,  _just leave, just- take the idea of the person you wanted me to be and leave_ , and she couldn't even say that, in the end. She doesn't have the luxury of being petty, not when they need him just as much as they need everyone else. So she works with him instead, professional and cheerful and so carefully, easily friendly, and it's not even as hard as it could be. Even when she joins them in the lab and can't help but notice how Lincoln looks at Jemma, the surprised joy in his eyes when he thinks Jemma's not looking, it doesn't hurt as much as it might.

(She has practice. This isn't the first time she's felt the sting of someone not wanting her, or covered her disappointment with a veneer of professionalism. Someone tying his tie, the two of them standing a shade too close together, and Daisy interrupting at just the wrong moment.  _You wear your heart on your face_ , he'd said, but since then, she's had so much time to learn a poker face.)

 

 

Coulson doesn't even talk to her anymore, not unless they're discussing mission tactics, and that hurts most of all. It doesn't matter, of course it doesn't  _matter_. She's glad he's talking to May, at least, and she understands how to manage her own feelings. She's more ruthless with herself than anyone else. It's just- it stings, of course, like everything else. Everything she's having to lose to hold it all together, and she can tell Coulson thinks he's lost too much.

They're hardly even in the same room nowadays, and that should make it easier. Secret Warriors is a full-time operation now, managing her agents across the globe, and when she's not doing that she's on mission, constantly, trying to protect. The terrigen reaching its final phase of distribution, the exponentiality they'd predicted so many months ago, and  _something else_ , something new, happening on the edges of things. Daisy doesn't understand the shape of it, not yet, but she knows deep in her bones it's something both terrible and somehow expected.

(She can't help feeling responsible for it all. These are her people,  _her people_ , and she caused this pathogen to bloom into their environment, to put people through a transformation none of them are equipped for. The very least she can do is work to protect them when it happens, and the way she protects is getting fiercer. She doesn't have time for gentle tremors when someone's shooting at a terrified child, and she knows there are casualties. She's an earthquake. Of course there are casualties. She expects to feel more upset than she does, in the end.)

When Ward -  _not_ Ward, Ward is dead, this is just a monster wearing his skin - reappears, terrible and terrifying, Daisy doesn't know how she didn't expect it earlier. (She did, she  _did_ , this was the shape she was waiting to see form.) They get through the day, somehow. She doesn't lose anyone, and that's the best that can be said. She'd thought, for sure-

She needs a drink. She's held together for so long, kept her chin up and her shoulders squared, let the weight of her team's fear land right on her. She's their leader, it's just what they need, but right now, now that the terror's passed and everyone is safe if only for the night, she  _needs a drink_.

(She needs to shed this weight, and there's nobody who will take it from her. Scotch is the next best option.)

She's hardly even surprised when she finds herself knocking on Coulson's office door. It's late, and the base is quiet, but he's still up. She thinks he's probably awake most nights, these days. He seems bewildered when she walks in, looks to her as if she's going to start talking strategy and intel, and she shoves her hands in her pockets, chews her lip a little.

"We don't have to talk. I just- I need a drink, and I need it somewhere I'm not..."

"Okay," he says, very simply. Takes out two glasses, pours them both a drink. When she sits down, she feels so tired her bones ache. The whisky burns all the way down, and when Daisy spreads her palm flat on her thigh, she realizes her fingers are trembling. There's a long, long silence. Coulson's the one who breaks it, in the end. "Hell of a day, huh."

"Yeah," she agrees. "Yeah, it-  _yes_."

"I'm sorry," Coulson says, and Daisy blinks, because oh, they're  _talking now_? If she'd known this was all it would take, an attack from a monster and a glass of scotch, she'd have tried it earlier. (She wouldn't have, her hands are still shaking, her throat closes up every time she thinks about Ward's - _not Ward's_ - sunken eyes, and she doesn't know how Joey escaped, but- she's a little bitter too, just a little.)

"Not your fault," she says, after too long a pause.

"You don't understand. I killed him. That changes things."

"No," Daisy says, " _No_. You don't understand. It doesn't matter. It's never mattered."

"I  _killed_ him," Coulson says again as if she didn't hear him the first time. "I could have left him there. He wasn't a threat anymore. I killed him, Daisy, and I-"

"I shot him," Daisy points out. "Four times. In the chest. Meant to kill him. And I took out Donnie Gill, and I... you think there haven't been other people I've killed? I  _cause earthquakes_ , Coulson. That's what I do. Did you kill Ward just for personal vengeance? Just because he shot Roz?"

" _No_ ," Coulson says, sounding horribly shocked. "No, of course I- there's not a person on this team he hasn't hurt. He wouldn't stop."

"That's what we do," Daisy tells him again. "When there are people who hurt others, people who won't stop, we're the shield between them. You  _know that_ , Coulson. It's what you taught me."  _Don't we put aside ourselves_ , she wants to ask.  _Don't we cover it up? Don't you know, yourself, there's nothing you wouldn't do to save your team? We're the same, you and I, and it was a promise you made me without words._

Maybe he sees all those thoughts, maybe her poker face isn't as good as she thinks, maybe she's just  _tired_ and she's letting it all show, because Coulson's expression shifts, and he lets out a breath as if he's winded.

"Oh," he whispers, "Daisy, I-"

"Thank you for the drink," she says, graceless and loud. Gets up, sets the empty glass on his desk, turns to leave. She's tired, and she hurts, and she doesn't want Coulson looking at her the way he does, the way he hasn't in so long. Not tonight, not when she's still covered in dust and sweat and fear, not when she's carrying so much weight already. (It's just another thing she's jettisoning, another thing she's having to lose, a luxury she can't afford, and oh, she's used to being ruthless with herself now, but it stings, it  _stings_.)

( _Daisy_ , he says, sounding broken and hopeful and punched right through, and she doesn't look back. _Maybe later_ , she promises herself,  _you can have this later, if you make it_ , and it's not enough.)


End file.
